


I'll Leave the Candles Burning

by LibertyKingdom



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 05:58:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9421553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibertyKingdom/pseuds/LibertyKingdom
Summary: Reverend Tallmadge's remorse and reflections about the war





	

He paced the wooden floor, his lips offering to Heaven a series of simple prayers. The kinds of which he has repeated too many times to accurately recount.

War, its sharp edged path tore families apart, divided neighbors and countries and in its destructive wake it leaves nothing but gaping voids and heartbreak. The Reverend knew it all too well, for he was a veteran of the French and Indian war. After witnessing all of the violence and bloodshed, he made a vow to God that he would never again pick up his Pennsylvania Rifle and use it against any man. As he had promised, he hadn't picked up the rifle for any use other than hunting wild game and protecting his farm from the clutches of ravenous critters, who could very well eat every crop planted. And so gradually, he became comfortable again in his life free of bloodshed.

Alas, a troubling dark cloud of conflict once more encompassed the colonies. This threat was not one that many would have foreseen coming, for it came from their own king and allies. Try as he might to pray away the tell-tale signs of war they became more and more noticeable with every passing day. Much to his dismay he discovers that both of his sons, Benjamin and Samuel were electing to enter the conflict. Both young boys joining the fray for the beliefs, convictions, and causes the Reverend had tried to impress upon them as important. While he knew that God would be watching over them, it did not keep his heart free of worry. The colonies were fixing to take on the mightiest Empire in the world while they happened to be at a severe disadvantage. It broke his heart to release both sons with his blessing. However, he knew that the tyrannical forces had to be done away with and if he withheld his blessing that they would go anyways. They were headstrong, as he had been when he was their ages.

Troubling thoughts plagued him, especially under restless cloak of night. It is when he laid himself down to sleep that the house most irked him. It was far too quiet, devoid of the hushed whispers wife and then of his sons as they went to sleep. The sturdy walls weren't the same without the rowdy company the boys often kept as children. It lacked the chaotic character and commotions of the strays that his youngest, Samuel was always bringing into the house. The thought of having to sit both Benjamin and Samuel down to explain that they lived in a house and not Noah's ark causes a slow smile to stretch across his face. But the smiles are usually quick to vanish again under the incredible pang of sorrow left by their absences. It was disturbingly quiet, not serene and reflective but rather alarming and unsettling.

His wife had died when she and Samuel had come down with a terrible illness. For a while it seemed that little Samuel would perish too but he was a fighter and his immune system was able to overcome it. The Reverend had been left all alone in the house he had built in Setuaket. Abandoned like a piece of driftwood tossed about by the stormy seas of life. He had been left to single-handedly tend all the wonderful and even the agonizing spirits of memories that still lurk within every crook and cranny of the place.

Before the war, he would take refuge and comfort in one of the wooden pews of his church.... the House of God. But even that comfort had been stolen from him by a force that fancied themselves above God and certainly above rebuke and reproach. The Reverend was still very bitter about the Regulars who saw fit to turn his church, his sanctuary, into barracks and stables. Then to add further insult to injury, the King's men tore out the gravestones in the cemetery in order to make "fortifications." One of the graves that was torn up happened to belong to his wife. He was certainly outraged by their lack of reverence but he was powerless to do anything but protest their actions.

Still, lying alone in his room there was one thing that brought him solstice. He vividly recalled teaching the boys about an event called the Passover, where God's chosen people put the blood of a lamb over their door so that the angel of death knew not to enter in. It was a mark of safety. The Reverend had also explained to them that during the French and Indian War, people who wanted to let the soldiers know that it was safe to enter a place would leave candles lit in the window. And carrying on that tradition in hopes that his boys still recalled his words, he took two stumps of wax with well worn wicks, the Reverend would leave two candles in the window as a nightly vigil for his son's safe returns.

Some nights the man would sit up by the window, a bible outstretched on his lap and he'd read till the wee hours of the morning.... hoping that maybe, just maybe that night would be the night one or both of them would return. Night after night the results seemed to be the same.... dreadful silences where he desired even the smallest hint of conversation. But he was not a man of weak faith. He had taught his boys well and that should they fall in some field, that their souls would find their ways to Heaven to be reunited with their mother.

But he would never give up the hope that at some odd midnight hour the front door would swing open, boots would clatter over the entry way and by way of candle light he would fix his eyes upon the boys again. Heck if the Reverend saw them walking up the path to the house, he would throw on his robes and rush out to meet them. Heck, he'd even carry them back into the house if he had to. His sons were his life and he knew not what he'd do without them.

And the same is true of him this very night. He sits quietly beside the window, keeping watch for his two beloved soldiers and sons. The Reverend casts longing gazes up at the sky knowing that where ever the war may have taken them, the stars shone down the same way over the land. And perhaps, if he was looking at the right moment at a certain patch of sky, one of his boys would be doing the same.


End file.
